Edith Friedlander Family Collection 1862-1998

This collection primarily contains materials from World War II related to Edith and Robert Friedlander, of Czech-German-Jewish descent. This material includes a birth certificate, declaration of intention document, US Army enlistment/separation papers for Robert Friedlander, and postcards that his parents wrote from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. There are questionnaires filled out by Edith Friedlander from the Austrian Heritage Collection, presenting a picture of pre-war Viennese Jewish life and the impact of the Anschluss. There are also Friedlander family photographs, predominately of Robert Friendlander during World War II. Accompanying this material are assorted miscellaneous 19th and early 20th century material: a title page of M. Friedlanders book "Die Religiösen Bewegungen Innerhalb Des Judentums im Zeitalter Jesu" (1905); an arcticle about Rabbi Michael Lazar Kohn mentioning Rabbi Jacob Schäfer (circa 1900); and pages from the newspaper "Sportler über Sport".Edith Friedlander, nee Kauefler, was born in Vienna on August 1, 1922. Because the family had Czech passports, it was easier for them to leave Austria immediately after the Nazi's rise to power in Austria in 1938. They went to Prague, Czechoslovakia, and lived there with a gentile family until the Nazis invaded the Czech Republic. In 1940 Karl Kaeufler died and in May 1942 Edith and her mother Elisabeth were deported to the ghetto Theresienstadt. In 1942 the two women were deported to Auschwitz, where Elisabeth was murdered. Edith was deported in 1944 to the labor camp Oderan, Germany, where she had to work in the war industry. Shortly before the war ended, Edith was brought to Theresienstadt where she could escape to Prague. There she stayed until May 1947, when she immigrated to the USA. Then Edith got married and worked as an editor for a publishing company.Robert Friedlander was born on June 17, 1909 in Olomouc, Czech Republic (Olmütz, Moravia) to Otto and Gisela Friedlaender. He lived in Prague before emigrating to Guayaquil, Ecuador and immigrating to the United States in 1941. He joined the US Army in July 1942, fighting in 1945 in Italy, France and Germany. Robert Friedlander got married to his second wife, Edith Kauefler in 1948(?).There is an itemized inventory list in folder 1Austrian Heritage CollectionProcessed for digitizationdigitize